The other morning I got up before sunrise to go for a walk/jog (mostly walk). Being up before sunrise isn’t unusual for me, but it’s the first time I had ever got up so early for that purpose. I put my cap on to soak up the sweat that I knew was coming once my heart-rate got up, strapped my phone to my arm, put my earphones in, got Lecrae’s Anomaly going and set out without much of a care in the world. It was good, but very early in the walk I experienced something that felt disturbing.

As I was heading down the road a lady stepped out of her driveway. She hadn’t looked my way and when she did, and saw that I was walking in her direction, she very quickly turned around and walked back into her property with a slightly fearful look on her face. As I walked past I saw her standing in her doorway watching me as I went by. Further down the road I looked back and noticed that she had come out again.

On the return home, another lady jogged past me while I was walking. When she was a little way in front of me I noticed she started looking back. What I have started doing is a mix of walking and jogging. The app on my phone hit the ending of a walking stage and told me to start jogging, so I did. At my most comfortable pace I was gaining on the her. I was still quite a distance from her but she glanced back and sped up. Her glances back over her shoulder got more frequent.

I got the sense she was feeling apprehensive so I crossed the road to try and let her know I wasn’t a threat. It meant that I was going to need to cross back at some point but I didn’t want to be scaring her. From the other side of the road I saw her look back again. She saw that I wasn’t there and started walking. She didn’t look back again.

I like to think I’m a nice guy who doesn’t look menacing, but clearly just by being a man in that context – a quiet suburban street before sunrise – I posed a sense of threat to both of those ladies. It felt confronting to be viewed like that.

It shows that we have a problem.

When the conclusion to the Roastbusters saga came, since there seemed to be no legal repercussions for what had happened I voiced a piece for Newstalk ZB that highlighted the issue about what messages were being sent to our young men. When TV3 reporter, Kim Vinnell was sexually harassed live on TV at Laneway Festival I put up some comments to share my discontent with it and spoke about it on Life FM. Then there was the tragedy of the death of Joanne Pert who was out for her morning run in Remuera, killed by a stranger.

As a man, I was able to leave my house before sunrise and go for a walk/jog with no sense that I could be in any danger. That’s clearly not the case for many women. For me, it highlighted a cultural power difference and how much stories like the aforementioned disempower women.

I don’t have the answers to the systemic issue that was apparent the other morning but I do know that it’s too easy for some men to dismiss various forms of sexual harassment as harmless fun; labeling any criticism of it as PC madness, and expecting the opposite sex to laugh it off. Too many are never conscious of the disempowerment that takes place when such harassment happens.

Rather than expecting them to laugh it off, we need to be doing everything in our power to make sure that women don’t feel unsafe. That starts not just by stopping the extremes like Roastbusters or the tragedy that occurred in Remuera, but by addressing all forms of harassment and never expecting that anyone should simply have to laugh it off.